Sunday Thoughts: Why?

I am sitting here, writing this at 2:11 AM on Sunday morning, or Saturday night depending on how you look at it. I should actually say Saturday night, because I have an unwritten rule that days start when you wake up or at 6 AM, whichever comes first. It’s a handy rule to have when you’re used to pulling all nighters. I’m not as used to that horror of sleep deprivation as I once was but I think my body’s still trained for it, like an athlete a few years after they’ve retired from professional competition – they can still run or jump but it’s not as easy now as it was in their prime.

Anyway, I’m sitting here with a very good biography of Richard Feynman next to me and I’m wondering why do I do this? Not read biographies, the answer to that is obvious (they’re interesting). I mean why do I involve myself in TSA? Why do I give up a lot of my time for no reward other than seeing my words appear on a website that is, by my obviously biased opinion, fairly popular.

In fact it’s not even my words a lot of the time, I’m simply editing the words of other very talented people who graciously agree to contribute material to our little endeavour, fixing the odd typo and making sure it finds a slot that maximises its visibility.* I do other bits and pieces, mostly making sure we’ve got enough content to keep everything going nicely, but I do miss having the time to write like I used to. Of course that’s my fault for being one of the slowest editors ever, largely due to having the TV on in the background distracting me. It’s a pretty poor way of doing it, and something I need to change.

[drop]And it’s not just editing words either, there’s the recording and editing of the podcast. I could actually pass the editing off to someone else if I wanted to, in fact I know from experience that my good friend Kev (Kevatron400) is a far more capable editor than I, and he really wants to edit the podcast for some reason. I often wonder why I don’t let him, but I know the answer; I’m simply too stubborn and too much of a control freak to pass it over to anyone else, even if I think they’ll do a better job than I will.

Does this perhaps explain why I keep myself involved in TSA? Am I too much of a control freak to let anyone else take over? We’re up for a GMA now and the question does frequently enter my mind of whether or not my stubbornness is stopping someone else from stepping up, from helping to run the site and take it even higher than it is now. That’s not to say that the site doesn’t live up to that nomination or deserve to win a GMA, that’s not my decision. It’s more a question of if I’m good enough to help run a site that the expectations of a nomination places on it. Quite often I think about leaving, letting someone better take over my role. Self-doubt can be a horrible thing, and I’ve got bucket loads of it.

Other times I think of how free I’d be without TSA. Not how much better or worse the site would be without me (the site’s trajectory after my imagined departure largely depends on my mood and how cocky I’m feeling), but what I could do if I just had the time. I could actually go play football on Monday evenings, stopping the perpetual moaning of my friends (who really just want to see more of me, or at least I think they do). I could go and see the films I mean to see but never really get around to because I have the nagging thought of tomorrow’s content schedule in the back of my mind. I could even write about things that aren’t videogames, I could write about comics or I could actually write fiction more (even if it’s not all that good).

And then, on the odd occasion the reason hits me. I love it here. I absolutely love it. This realisation tends to come with the rare moments when I think I’ve written something that people might enjoy, the most recent one was my preview of Need for Speed: The Run. I’d just had a rather nice lunch in the café where I try and write when it’s not the middle of the night, and it was a beautiful day outside. I was actually happy with something I wrote and the sense of sheer joy, that seems to have been far too short lived, washed over me. I was happy, content and in love with videogames writing again (what I do is not by any stretch journalism, even if I accidentally use the word at times).

Of course there’s one issue that comes with the love. I can’t not be involved with TSA. I’ve tried, trust me. Oh how I’ve tried. I think the only time Peter has ever shouted at me was when he caught me looking at articles that needed editing whilst I was on one of my brief holidays from the site, the whole purpose of which was so I didn’t have to worry about TSA for a few days. Even then he wasn’t actually telling me off, he really is a nice man to work for (if you can call it work).

That’s why I do it. Not because I want a job writing about games, largely because I suspect I wouldn’t enjoy it as much if I wasn’t doing it for TSA, and certainly not for money, because there isn’t any. I do it because I love it and you, whoever you are, are a large part of the reason I get joy from doing this.

In all honesty I wouldn’t care that much if no-one read what I wrote, I’ve written personal blogs that worked like that. However knowing that there is a receptive audience out there on the other side of the screen, an audience that will comment whether or not they agree with what I wrote and give me some actual feedback, makes it all feel so much better.

And, for once, I didn’t even mention Halo.

*I don’t mean to suggest I do these elements of the editorial process alone, I’d probably have melted into a pile of slush without the assistance of Peter.